


Shared Trauma

by ClimateChange5517



Series: He Knows a Guy [1]
Category: Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Jessica Jones Needs a Hug, Light Angst, Mental Health Issues, Past Rape/Non-con, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Skip Westcott is His Own Warning, Zebediah Killgrave is His Own Warning, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClimateChange5517/pseuds/ClimateChange5517
Summary: Peter and Jessica knew they'd neverfullyrecover after what's happened in their lives, but they try their best to.ORThe one where Peter and Jessica are Trauma Buddies and help each other out when things get rough.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Jessica Jones, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: He Knows a Guy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2005411
Comments: 6
Kudos: 162





	Shared Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually going to be a part of a series of one-shots that I have yet to create and have no idea when I will. Basically a bunch of stories about Peter and his absurd ways of meeting people. This is kind of set in a really vague almost pre-netflix time period. Where they’ve kind of been doing this gig for a bit now, their names/pseudonyms are known, and they have a track record, but nothing major from the shows has happened yet.
> 
> Trigger warnings:
> 
> Implied Molestation/Rape  
> Suicidal Ideation and _almost near_ attempts.

Jessica knew she would never truly get over Killgrave. She’d known since she first threw off his mind control, and she knew it now.

_“Oh Jessica~”_

But she also knew that she needed to start confronting it if she ever wanted a chance to help Peter.

Peter Parker, whose only friend and babysitter had molested him.

_“His name was Skip. I was eight and he was my first friend.”_

Jessica knew, the first night Peter had admitted to what had happened to him, that she needed to face her own demons.

And so she began to, ever so slightly, cut down on her drinking. She visits a guy, and while he’s not exactly a licensed therapist, they talk.

She knew, just like with Killgrave, that she wouldn’t ever really stop drinking. 

_She couldn’t fall asleep if she was anything but wasted. ___

____

__

But, for the first time in months, she’d declined a drink offered to her.

And she was pretty damn proud of that.

And Peter, Peter knew he needed to face his demons as well.

He became, if ever so slightly, just a little less reckless. Instead of swinging right in the middle of a mugging, he paused and aimed, swinging into the side of the mugger instead.

Instead of skipping lunch entirely, he brought a small snack.

Instead of getting in over his head without letting anyone know, he _told_ people that he was about to be stupid.

Granted he never _truly_ gave them enough information to help him out entirely, but it was a start.

They took care of each other.

On bad nights, they would call, meet up at the cafe off the corner of 45th and 47th, and complain about their taste in men, despite the fact that neither of their situations ever actually involved their taste in men. Jessica would call Danny a dumbass, and Peter would call Matt even more of a dumbass.

They compromised, instead agreeing that everyone was pretty fucking stupid.

On occasion they would arm wrestle. Peter never won. He got closer the drunker Jessica got, but he never won.

_They couldn’t fight back during those times. It was refreshing to be able to use their strength. ___

____

__

Jessica would order a black coffee and add whiskey to it, and Peter would order an abomination with so much sugar and cream, even _he_ wondered if it was truly still coffee.

Jessica would visit Peter and May’s apartment, sneaking food into the cupboards, and Peter watered down her vodka.

Both were acutely aware of what the other person was doing.

Peter would tell Jessica to stop using alcohol to sleep, and Jessica would tell him that he needs to have better sleeping habits before he can tell _her_ about her sleeping problems.

They both had a near obsession with their beds being clean. The slightest stickiness or anything, really, would send them into a flashback.

It was almost funny how much being fucked up in that sense led to them helping each other.

_almost ___

____

____

Peter had been staying at the tower for a few days. May’s best friend was really badly injured, and May was visiting for a bit. She said that she needed a bit of a break as well, and Lucy’s injury gave her the greatest excuse.

It was being in a new bed that had set him off. He woke up, still feeling phantom hands on his hips. Old bruises long healed almost seemed to ache. He could still hear Skip’s voice in his ear, and a nonexistent breath stretching across the back of his neck.

He couldn’t see, far too blinded by panic.

Or maybe it was less that he couldn’t see and more that his surroundings didn’t register.

His blood pounded in his ears, and New York sounded far too loud. Car horns and sirens and heartbeats and a person snoring two floors down. The coffee machine from the lab and the hum of Mr. Stark’s arc reactor.

He was gasping for breath, dizzy and lightheaded. F.R.I.D.A.Y.’s voice cut through the panic, only barely reaching him.

“Mr. Parker you seem to be in distress, would you like me to contact Mr. Stark?” The A.I. sounded concerned, and Peter shook his head.

“No.” he managed to gasp out.

He wasn’t entirely sure when he ended up on the floor. He reached back, grabbing his phone blindly. Her number was on speed dial.

He kicked the sheets tangling his legs, pressing the phone to his ear. The white noise on the other end indicating that she’d picked up.

“Jess-” he choked out.

She didn’t ask if he was okay, she knew he wasn’t. She knew better than to ask what it was about over the phone. He could hear her shift, and ask

“Same Cafe as usual?”

“P-please.”

He hated how weak he sounded. How the echoes of unwanted touch made him shiver in revulsion.

How _dirty_ he felt.

_“Let’s do an experiment, Einstein.” ___

____

____

Bile rose in his throat as he stumbled to his feet, leaning on the bed heavily. He was gasping for breath still, but he was doing just a bit better, he’d like to think.

“Follow my breathing, Peter.”

_Peter_

He was Peter, not _Einstein_ , or _Baby_ or any of the other convoluted nicknames Skip had used.

He struggled to match the pace she set, only barely managing.

His heart slowed down, and he slumped, finally getting his bearings on reality.

“I’ll be there in fifteen.” he murmured. Only a quiet mhm as a sign she’d heard. The phone clicked off and he was left alone.

He’d lied, truly, about being there in fifteen minutes. Jessica had known he’d been underestimating.

But stepping into the bathroom to wash his face had turned into a steaming hot shower and a brutal scrub, leaving his skin, even with his advanced healing factor, pink and raw.

But Jessica understood, because she’d had just as many days where she would call him at 2 in the morning, showing up two hours later nearly bloody from the scrubbing.

They both desperately wanted to feel clean, yet they couldn’t.

So they did the next best thing, they drank insane amounts of coffee, and, in Jessica’s case, alcohol. Peter would swing just as recklessly as ever, and Jessica would go around half about to punch someone clean across the street.

For now, they drank, and talked, and complained. No swinging idiotically, nor punching strangers into buildings.

Peter had met Jessica at a really low point in his life. Just two weeks after his Uncle Ben had been killed, and life came back to beat him up again. His Aunt had tried her hardest to keep him away from the news, but he’d still heard from old friends who never knew what _actually_ had happened.

Skip was coming back to New York.

And so he was sitting on the edge of the bridge, lost in his thoughts.

He didn’t really want to jump. He knew that he wanted to move on, and he could never do that to May.

But he’d fantasized before, and he was doing it again.

“It’s not worth jumping, kid.”

He’d yelped, turning around, forgetting he was on the edge of a bridge.

He just managed to catch the terror in her eyes as he slid off-

Only to catch himself one-handed on the underside of the bridge. As he pulled himself up, he gave a shaky laugh.

“Fuck. Fuck! I- okay you’re alive. You’re alive.” She seemed guilty, and scared.

“I- I just, I know what that’s like and I saw you and I-”

“You’re fine, I normally know when there’s someone behind me, you just startled me is all.”

“I nearly got you killed.”

“I don’t think this height would actually kill me. Did the math and with- look, you managed to distract me from why I came here, I think that counts as a win.”

“I- fuck. I’m Jessica.”

“Peter.”

They hadn’t actually seen each other afterwards for two weeks, not until Peter went swinging in his homemade suit and saw Jessica standing on the edge of the bridge, almost the same exact spot he had been.

Cautiously, he approached her.

“Hey.”

She flung her head back around, blinking heavily.

“Do I know you?”

He paused. He didn’t know her, but-

She’d seen how he caught himself.

It wouldn’t be too far of a stretch if she were to figure it out.

So he took off his mask.

“Yeah. You wanna talk?”

It took them a while to talk about what was _actually_ bothering them those bad days.

Sure there were things in passing,

_“I hate how he made me feel.” ___

____

__

but they could have been interpreted as anything.

Until Peter saw Skip in passing one day.

He strayed closer to the edge of the bridge than he had in ages, just barely on by the back of the soles of his shoes.

A heavy gust of wind could knock him down, and Peter wasn’t sure if he would have cared.

And when Jessica had asked what was wrong, he broke.

He managed to convey two basic points across to her as he curled up crying.

_Skip was back._  
_And Skip had- done things._

Jessica knew those ‘things’.

She knew what Peter was dealing with in a way, and so she spilled too.

It took him ages to finally say it out loud. It was as though speaking it would make it happen again. It hadn’t, but the fear was still there.

_“When I was seven he molested me.”_

They pretended it was the coffee that helped, some days. Others, they pretended like all they needed was just to be around someone else, anyone else.

And just like Jessica with Killgrave, and Peter with his destructive tendencies,

they knew otherwise.

They needed to feel _needed._

Not Jessica Jones, the woman with super strength and rumored laser eyes, nor Queens’ Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

Just _Jessica_ and _Peter_.

Two people who got the short end of the stick in life and were doing their best.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first fic, and I have no clue if the formatting will actually work out or not. Any issues? Grammar, mispellings, bad formatting? Leave a comment! :)  
> And take care of yourselves. Drink some water, eat some food, and take a break.


End file.
